Like A Bird
by WhatWldMrsWeasleyDo
Summary: Ron's always thought that Draco just ate like a bird; it's not until they move in together that he realises exactly why he never sees Draco eat. Contains references to mental health issues.


**Warnings**: Non-sexual body fluids, oblique reference to oral sex, parental homophobia.

Based on prompt 5 at lj hp mental healthfest". Thanks to "seraphimerising" for the prompt. Thanks to "starstruck1986" for the beta. You are both lovely people to whom I owe so much already.

Disclaimer: This piece of art or fiction is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros. Inc. No money is being made, no copyright or trademark infringement, or offence is intended. All characters depicted in sexual situations are above the age of consent.

Details about the syndrome described can be found here: .

* * *

Ron woke up feeling warmer than usual. It was early and the light coming in through the gap between the curtains was pale. He could smell something which made him happy. He opened his eyes as he recognised the sensation of flesh against his thigh. In a rush, he remembered everything and smiled. The shape in the bed beside him was the body of his lover; the blond hair on the pillow was his, as was the scent and the light music of his breath. It was morning and Draco was still here; and he would be every morning to come because now they lived together.

Ron had thought in the beginning, given his background, that Draco would expect to be taken to a fancy restaurant. He had pictured starched white napkins and layers of confusing silver cutlery in both directions, with waiters who understood wines and French and despised him because he didn't. He dreaded it. But he had asked Draco to go out to dinner with him because he was infatuated. When Draco not only agreed to a date but suggested the circus instead, Ron was so relieved that he thought no more about it.

Ron had always had a hearty appetite. In fact, some had accused him of greed. He had spent a good portion of his adolescent years focussed on the next meal. He had grown up watching his brothers doing the same. It was considered normal in his family to wolf down as much food as possible - if anything was left on your plate, then someone else would have it.

He had watched - entranced but appalled – the first time he had seen Hermione eat. She held her cutlery delicately and saved her favourite food until last. She was obviously disgusted by the sight of him eating.

His appetite had settled when he had stopped growing. He had even learnt to slow down, though he never relished every nuance of flavour the way Hermione did. He still enjoyed and looked forward to meals. For his mother, the act of providing food had always been a display of her love. Ron craved the warmth that gave him.

So when he had first courted Draco, he had offered him chocolates and invited him out for dinner, and had wanted to cook for him. Draco had countered that one with tickets to a Cannons game. It had been such a generous, unexpected thoughtfulness, that Ron had ignored the rejection of his culinary skills.

After the war, most of their contemporaries had gone back to Hogwarts to resume their interrupted education. Ron decided that George needed help in the shop; it was a good excuse, because he'd never enjoyed schoolwork. He had found Draco – to his surprise – working in Florian Fortescue's ice cream parlour. The old man was dead, but the business lived on. Draco told Ron that he couldn't bear to return to the school which had been the scene of such horrors – and Ron believed him.

They were the only two from their year group on the Alley. They shared history which nobody else there did. Ron started going into the ice cream parlour on his lunch breaks – he ate, Draco worked. Eventually their relationship thawed amongst the frozen desserts.

Ron had not been welcomed by the Malfoys. He was hardly good breeding material. The reaction of the Weasleys had been mixed, but gradually, over two and half years, they had got to the point where Draco had been asked to accompany Ron for Sunday lunch.

Draco had brought Molly flowers and a charming apology the Saturday night before, claiming that his own mother would not excuse him his presence, asking whether he might be allowed to come in the morning instead, to join the family at church.

Molly had been impressed and six months later Draco was very much a member of the tribe. Arthur would tell anyone who would listen how very different Draco was from his father. Even Fleur had forgiven him for letting Greyback into the Castle to attack Bill. He never came to lunch, though.

Draco had always been slim. At school his body had been enviably toned and slender, but his thinness had become something else -skinny. He made Ron feel bulky and clumsy. Passion gave him energy when they made love, but most of the time he was lethargic. It was the same passion which had fuelled their enmity for years, something carried in the blood. After sex they would doze, then Draco would get up, dress and leave. He went back to the cold disapproval of his parents' house.

"You hate it there," Ron would say.

"Of course I do."

"So leave. Move in with me."

"To live above a shop?" Draco's lip curled. "I'm not a tradesman."

It was a good home, though. George had moved out when he married Angelina so Ron had the place to himself. It would have been perfect for the two of them. Apparently it wasn't good enough for a Malfoy, however. Weasley standards were low; Ron felt inadequate.

He saved up his money, worked out how much he could make by subletting, arranged a loan with Bill and found a cottage. He was sure it wouldn't be good enough, that there would be some obvious inferiority to it which his poor breeding prevented him from seeing. Nervously, he had presented it to Draco one evening.

"Just thought we might look around. Don't know what you think. If it's okay we could put an offer on -"

Draco gazed at the roses in the front garden, the thatch on the roof. "I can't afford this," he'd said in a broken voice.

"I can. I worked it out. Come inside." Ron had taken Draco's hand and pulled him over the threshold.

Draco was quiet as they walked round.

"Is it okay?" Ron had dared to ask eventually.

"It's beautiful. Perfect." Draco had sighed. "For a family. We don't need this much space, so many rooms."

"But if you want it ..." Ron shrugged.

"Eventually," Draco spoke slowly. "When we're middle-aged and settled. We could raise children here."

Ron's eyes had grown wet and his throat had dried. He couldn't imagine a life without Draco, but that was the first time he had understood that his lover felt the same about him; that they both wanted their future to be shared.

Draco continued, "When I've inherited, we'll be able to afford it."

"You wouldn't want to live at the Manor?" Ron had assumed that he would and had been dreading that.

Draco had shivered and proceeded to silently shake his head. He had heaved a deep breath. "But we don't need this now. It's not worth you getting into debt for -"

"It is! I don't care what it costs, I want us to live together." Ron held onto both of Draco's hands and looked into his grey eyes, willing the understanding to sear into his brain. "I want to wake up with you and go to sleep with you and look after you -"

"We can do that at your flat."

"But you always said -"

"I was just ..." Draco looked down at their hands. His were so small and bony and they fitted inside Ron's big paws and made him feel ungainly. "I was nervous," Draco finished up.

So there they were, together on an autumnal morning in September, waking up together and starting their day with a kiss. If they could have done, Draco's parents would have disinherited him, but luckily the legacy was magically bound to his blood. He had moved in on his morning off, sneaking a few possessions and clothes out of his elegant childhood bedroom and into the tastefully plain masculinity above Wheezes. Lucius had sent a Howler when he found out and Ron had understood Draco's previous reluctance.

Draco had been forced to work late to make up the time, and when he had arrived home that night, they had made love and fallen asleep. In their shared home. Whilst he showered and dressed, Ron filled their home with the smell of bacon. Draco finally appeared looking crisp and adorable in their kitchen. He made Ron feel scruffy and grubby in comparison.

"Breakfast!"

"Sorry, I haven't got time."

"You have to eat breakfast; most important meal of the day."

"I'll get something at work."

Then Draco kissed his cheek and Ron forgot his disappointment.

That evening, Ron finally cooked for Draco. He left George cashing up and prepared a careful meal full of love.

Draco ate more delicately than anyone Ron had seen before. Ron realised that he'd never witnessed the dainty cutting and picking before; that it was the first time he had seen Draco eat. Straight after dessert, before the coffee was brewed, Draco went into the bathroom and he stayed there for half an hour.

The next morning he told Ron not to go to any trouble, he would eat at work; his meals were part of his wages and they needed to save money now his allowance had been cut off.

Dean sauntered into George's shop about a week later.

"Mr Thomas, sir," Ron bowed low.

They both laughed.

"You're back?"

"I am," Dean replied, glowing with something bedded deep with in him. Ron wondered if it was confidence.

"How was France?"

Dean shrugged. "Fell at my feet."

"Of course."

"_Bien sur_," Dean replied.

"You finished your course?"

"Top of the class. Got an agent and a gallery exhibition."

"Nice one!"

"I know! How are you? Life good to you? You look ..." Dean cocked his head on one side to examine his old room-mate. "Content," he supplied eventually.

Ron laughed. "Maybe. Draco moved in. That'll be it. The domestic bliss."

Dean's eyebrow's shot up. "Would have thought he'd be hard work. You look so relaxed."

"I'm happy."

"All going well, then?"

"Yes, I – Yes. Yes, it's great."

Dean moved closer, resting his hands on the counter to lean in to Ron. "But?"

"Nothing. Just brilliant. We're in love and we're together ..."

"Sure, but there's something."

Ron sighed. He looked around the shop. It was early, it was almost empty. "I'm being silly," he said. "Precious."

"But?" Dean pressed him gently.

"I sound like a whiny child. He won't eat my food. He did once." Ron shrugged. "I just feel ..." but found he couldn't explain how he felt and so he stopped talking.

"You want to nurture and cosset him and he won't let you?" Dean said it lightly enough, as though maybe it was a joke.

So Ron grinned and nodded. "Stupid, isn't it?"

"No, it's natural."

"You see, he works at Fortescue's so by the time he gets home, he's sick of looking at food ..." Ron started to repeat the excuses Draco made.

Dean stopped him. "You mean he doesn't eat at all?"

"He eats at work. He must do."

"You sure?" Dean frowned.

"He must do," Ron repeated.

When he went in to see Draco at lunchtime, Dean was already there, with Gabrielle Delacour. The first thing Ron thought was that maybe Dean's glow didn't all come from his success in his public life. He sat with them, but she didn't stay long.

"He's so thin!" Dean said as soon as she'd gone.

"What?"

"He's lost weight. Draco. A lot."

"Has he?"

"I haven't seen him for a year so it's really obvious. This is serious, Ron. He needs to eat."

"He does eat."

"When I saw him last year, he was obviously troubled -"

"He had a hard war. We're all getting over things."

"I know. Exactly." Dean gripped his friend's arm. "Have you heard of _Anorexia Nervosa_?"

"Yeah, of course. Draco's not Anorexic. I mean ..." Ron bit his lips. "That's the slimming disease Muggle girls get, right?"

"Not just girls."

"Right, but ... Right! Look, I sat opposite him and watched him put away a three course meal the first night he moved in."

"What happened after that?"

"What?"

"He doesn't look like a man who's had a square meal in a decade. He didn't throw it up afterwards did he?"

"What?" Ron's brain felt slow and numb and useless.

"It's called _Bulimia Nervosa_ -"

"No! No. Draco's not -" But then Ron remembered how Draco had gone straight to the bathroom after they had eaten and how long he'd stayed in there. He looked over to where his loved one stood behind the counter, pouring crimson sauce over a mound of pale pink ice cream and he saw how very slim his wrists were.

"You need to get him professional help," Dean insisted. "It's not surprising, he's been through a lot. Something's got to give. Don't try to handle this on your own, Ron. Get help."

Dean was Muggle-raised. Dean didn't understand. Muggles had specialists for everything because they didn't have magic. There was one thing which only Ron knew, though, and that was how to love Draco. He would handle it himself.

When Ron got home, he cleared the low coffee table and laid it out with tiny plates of minute portions. If only the food was appetising enough, then he was sure that Draco would eat it. Ron just had to be a good enough cook.

Draco opened _their_ front door with _his_ key and climbed the stairs to _their own_ home. When he walked into the sitting room and saw the food, he reared back in horror as though there had been entrails laid out on the table, instead of Ron's carefully prepared delicacies; Ron realised that he was not good enough.

"It's only nibbles," Ron said. "A few snacks."

"It looks lovely," Draco lied. "But just now, there's something else I'd rather put in my mouth, something I've been thinking about all day ..."

Ron wondered if Draco thought he was really so stupid that he would not notice such a weak attempt at distraction.

Ron frowned. "Not until you eat something," he said petulantly.

Draco stopped shimmying towards him. "I knew this was going to happen," he said. "I wish I'd never moved in."

Ron's face fell. "Do you really?"

"No, no," Draco reassured him. He hurried to Ron and held him by the shoulders. "No, I shouldn't have said that. You've made me happier than anything. I love living with you. Just please don't make me eat with you!"

"Why not? Because you don't eat?"

"I do eat."

"Draco, I love you, and if you don't eat then you'll starve to death."

"I do eat. I eat every day!"

"I never see you."

"I don't eat in public," Draco said with a sigh.

Ron broke away from him and sat down heavily on the sofa. "I'm not public!" he said angrily. "You don't get naked in public or -"

"It's disgusting, Ron! Don't make me do this. I'm disgusting. I don't want you to be disgusted with me."

"Come here!" Ron shouted angrily. When Draco was close enough he grabbed his left hand. "You could never disgust me. I adore everything about you." He shoved up Draco's sleeve to reveal what remained of his Dark Mark. "Even this. If this doesn't disgust me -"

"Fine! Be like that!" Draco snapped. He sat down and wrenched his arm back. "You asked for it, though." He snatched up a sausage roll and crammed it into his mouth. Then he leapt up and dashed to the kitchen, returning with Ron's cake mixing bowl.

"What's that for?" Ron asked as Draco sat down and started back into the food.

"You make this hummus yourself? It's really good."

"The bowl?"

"Wait and see." Draco ate steadily for another few minutes and Ron watched him.

Then Draco stopped, took a deep breath and put a hand on his stomach. He picked up the big bowl and lay back. He smiled weakly at Ron, who took his hand and held it inside both of his.

"Do you remember Professor Babbage?" Draco asked.

Ron shook his head.

"Muggle studies."

"Never took it."

"Me neither."

"Big surprise."

They grinned at each other.

"Yeah," Draco said in a sigh, "that would have pleased Father almost as much as living in sin with a man." He grew serious again: "The Dark Lord brought her to the Manor to torture and kill."

"Her and a few others. I know. I'm sorry, love."

"She was the one suspended over the dinner table, though. While we were eating. That was the first time it happened."

"Draco?"

Draco had gone pale grey and was sitting upright, clutching the bowl. "Right on cue," he said.

"Don't be sick," Ron begged. "Please don't make yourself sick."

Draco's abdomen heaved and he put his head right in the bowl. There was the wet splat of Ron's lovingly prepared supper landing in it.

Ron sniffed, still clutching tight to Draco's free hand. He felt his eyes water. "Please don't make yourself sick," he said again. "You have to leave it in there. I don't want you to keep getting lighter, I want you to put on weight. And not die."

Draco sat up again and wiped his mouth with his hand. "I'm not doing it on purpose," he said. "Look!" He showed Ron the inside of the bowl. "Smell it!"

It wasn't vomit; it was tiny, perfect, bitesize pieces of food. A neatly bitten quarter of a cherry tomato sat on the top.

"I could eat that again," Draco said. "Sometimes I do. Now are you disgusted?"

Ron shook his head.

"Sometimes some of it stays down the second time. Or the third time," Draco continued. "And sometimes it doesn't."

"I love you, Draco." Ron couldn't think of anything else to say.

"I have no control over this. You understand, don't you?" Draco's grey eyes stared intently at his lover's face.

Ron nodded, then shrugged. "I'll sort it out for you," he promised. "We'll make it better. I'll get some books -"

"I've read all the books. There's nothing -"

"We'll go to St Mungo's, then."

"I've been; they can't help me. They tried a few spells but nothing helped."

"Well, then, I'll ask Dean. He said -"

"Dean Thomas? You discussed me with Dean Thomas?"

"He was the one who talked to me. About how thin you are. He's worried about you. Look, he'll know somewhere – Oh." Ron looked at Draco. "But it would be Muggle. Would you go somewhere Muggle?"

"I'll do anything, Ron."

The next few weeks passed like a blur. They began to eat together, and Ron endured the spectacle of Draco regurgitating every meal. And it was that they found themselves in the clean, bare office at the Muggle clinic and heard the middle-aged woman in the white coat say the words, "Rumination Syndrome."

She looked pleased to be giving them a name, but Ron couldn't see how that helped; he wanted to know how to make it all better.

Draco was happy that he had a word for his condition, though. "It's not just me, then?" he asked. "There are other people, enough others for this to be recognised and labelled?"

She nodded. "Enough for us to have an established program of treatment." She leaned across the desk towards him and said, "I am so glad that you have come here, Mr Malfoy. So many people don't."

"I don't want to die," Draco said simply. "I'm so happy now. I want to stay being happy and alive and -" he swallowed, took a deep breath.

"You won't die. I promise you." She fished a leaflet out of a drawer and handed it over. "I'll refer you to our Rumination specialist and he'll phone you to make an appointment. He's going to work with you to teach you a breathing method which should inhibit the ability to regurgitate. This makes things better for eighty six percent of patients. Thirty percent of them stop bringing any food up at all."

"Eighty six percent?" Ron frowned. He'd never been good with numbers and they didn't teach mathematics at Hogwarts.

The doctor stopped looking at Draco long enough to give Ron an encouraging smile. "Even if your young man is one of the unlucky fourteen percent who can't use the diaphragmatic breathing method then we'll make sure he doesn't starve. There are other ways of getting enough nutrition." She turned back to Draco and gave him a card from a pile in front of her. "In addition," she said, "this treatment has been found to be most effective when used in conjunction with supportive therapy, so you'll also be hearing from a counsellor. At some point. Though..." she sighed. "The waiting lists are ridiculous."

"To do what?" Draco asked.

"Just to talk. About your feelings."

"He can talk to me," Ron said.

"Yes, it's not quite the same." She smiled warmly at Ron, "Though, having your love and support behind him is going to make a big difference." She looked back at Draco. "You're lucky to have such a caring partner."

"I know," Draco said and squeezed Ron's hand.

Ron thought that maybe he might be good enough after all.


End file.
